Saturday, February 09, 2013

Hollywood gets heavy over HobbitFilm giant Warner Brothers has told the Government it will jeopardise future film investment if it releases "sensitive information" about the deal to keep production of The Hobbit in New Zealand.

Ombudsman David McGee has ordered the release of 18 previously withheld Government documents about the 2010 deal.

They include emails between Warner Bros' New Line studio, Sir Peter Jackson's Wingnut Films and the Government about the union dispute that threatened to take production offshore.

The Government, which had refused to release the documents, can now prevent their publication only by issuing an order in council, signed by the governor-general. Such a power has never been used.

Now If I remember correctly, and i think I do, the media in NZ immediately sided with Peter Jackson and the PM in attacking the Unions and claiming it was their fault that The Hobbit may go overseas.

Interestingly of course, once Peter Jackson's emails were released that position was shown up for the lie it always was...

...so why shouldn't we see the emails between Warner Brothers and Wingnut as well? NZ has shoveled tens of millions of dollars worth of corporate welfare into this movie and re-wrote our employment law for a foreign corporation all because the Actors Union was supposedly threatening the film being shot here.

The sleepy hobbits of NZ bought John Key's and Peter Jackson's deceptions and indulged in some good old fashioned union bashing so why can't we see what really happened?

6 Comments:

If the Governor General were to sign an order in council about this there would be outrag; it would be seen gross interference in the normal business of government and would be a huge boon for the republican cause.

I can barely understand why Jackson was Knighted in the first place. I watched, with fascination, Vincent Ward's "Rain of the Children" on Maori TV last Saturday (2nd Feb), and came away thinking how it could be that Jackson is more worthy of a knighthood than Vincent. Vincent Ward truly grasps, lives, loves, and breathes this country. The same cannot be said of "sir" Jackson, who is merely exploiting his position to make a quick buck.

How fascinating, I can't believe that there isn't something in all this about the real Tolkein family... personally I could never watch a version of the Hobbit which had been doctored to add another elf :( I agree, o Nitrium, Vincent Ward runs rings around that dish wash detergent advertiser. Rain of the Children, wow, That's a masterpiece